Tradition / Region: Romanian Mythology
Alternate Names: The Kronstadt Lindworm; Peak Dragon; The Mountain Linddur
Category: Dragon
The Myth
Not long after the town of Kronstadt was founded among the mountains, people said a dreadful dragon lived in a small cave high on a peak above the settlement. The creature, called the Linddur, would fly down into the valley whenever hunger drove it, devouring both people and animals and filling the region with fear.
One day the son of the town judge, a student preparing to preach, went outside the walls to memorize his sermon. Near the city wall he found a quiet place and began to recite his words aloud. He spoke so loudly and earnestly that the Linddur heard him from its mountain cave.
The dragon swooped down before the youth could escape and swallowed him whole.
Grief spread through the town, for the young man was well loved, and his parents were overcome with sorrow. While they mourned, a stranger came before the judge and said, “Strength cannot defeat such a beast, but cunning may. If we act quickly, your son may yet be saved.”
The judge promised him a rich reward. The stranger took a calfskin and filled it with quicklime. He laid it out in an open patch of grass near the castle and hid nearby, bleating like a calf.
Hearing the sound, the Linddur descended at once. It saw what it thought was prey and devoured the calfskin greedily. Soon afterward it was seized by a terrible thirst and flew to the nearest water to drink deeply.
But the quicklime within it drank the water faster still and burned with such heat that the dragon’s body swelled and burst apart. When the beast split open, the student was found still alive inside and was rescued.
In gratitude, the judge rewarded the clever stranger with many gifts. And to remember the deliverance, the image of the Lindworm was set upon the wall that leads from the eastern corner of the city up toward the archer’s battlement, so that all would recall the dragon that once haunted the peak above Kronstadt.
Gallery
Sources
sagen.at contributors. (n.d.). Der Lindwurm auf der Zinne. In sagen.at, from https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/rumaenien/siebenbuergen/lindwurm.html
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive